Grumpy old man is someone whom I never thought I’d turn into, but my daughter often tells me not to be so grumpy. My friends ask me why I’m so grumpy sometimes when I show up. Even my co-workers sometimes say I’m grumpy. I’ve been called out enough that I can no longer hide behind my resting bitch face my general loathing for the great unwashed.
Then I thought about it for a bit as I typically do with most bewilderment and I believe my grumpiness stems from my impatience for people’s subpar and underutilized intellectual capacity, or more precisely, their unwillingness to use their brains is what irritates me the most.
People aren’t considerate. I would never rush an elderly person crossing the road who got caught midway through a light change. Nor would I honk at a person negotiating the rivets on the road with a white cane. More likely I would wait patiently and might even stop traffic with an opened car door to guardrail them to ensure their protection from other approaching cars. In one case, I even got out of my car and assisted in front of other supportive and patient drivers. But if an able-bodied person saunters across the road tardily looking at their phone even after the light has changed without being aware that others are waiting for them, that’s when my grumpiness can trigger the inner hulk. I hate it when people take up more oxygen than necessary.
The internet has made every mundane factoid available, yet the masses have become an uninformed democracy and becoming ever more ignorant.
People can’t think beyond themselves. In law, there’s a concept in settlement of civil damages called consequential damages and could include indirect losses. This can be difficult to itemize much less quantify and so, in many contracts, this type of loss is thoughtfully contemplated and strictly confined. However, in personal relationships, the out-of-sight, out-of-mind approaches are pervasive. Typically, what falls outside a person’s 180o vision, almost always falls outside their full sphere of consideration. Take the breakfast buffet diner, for example, who scoops up a plateful of bacon leaving crumbs for others. I’ve seen, in my travels, that even staff are reluctant to refill at the risk of having the prized strips being raided again. They are more likely to replenish the bacon when they see everyone at the breakfast bar enjoying them. Many people just do not think or care about anything outside of what they define as self.
People are just stupid. Brilliant is the sporadic flash of foresight that flickers out of a person’s head like an underused lightbulb. Sadness is when this idea or action fades and we witness their perpetual dimming. The very first time I went to Houston, TX, I asked a waitress in casual conversation, how big the city was. She said it takes a particular amount of time to cross the city. I inquired about the number of people who live here. She didn’t know, yet she’s a native and have never left the state. I find it mind boggling that people simply don’t have any curiosity about their immediate, much less the greater world. The internet has made every mundane factoid available, yet the masses have become an uninformed democracy and becoming ever more ignorant. It’s sad that most people haven’t read a book in the past year, much less learned a new skill.
On the whole, our society has become dumb and dumber. It saddens me to see the trajectory of our own society as we look at the rise of others. And as I get older; I am realizing our collective decline is accelerating. I’m so disappointed especially when it is so preventable.
